The San Diego Padres have been the best team in baseball since the All-Star break, blazing a trail toward the playoffs to the tune of a 35-16 second-half record. The return of Fernando Tatis Jr. gives them a full and powerful lineup, the return of Yu Darvish gives them a full playoff rotation and the additions at the trade deadline give them a knockout punch combination at the back-end of the bullpen.
This team has everything it needs to win its first ever World Series title.
Of course, no team is ever immune from concerns and the Padres have a specific worry right now: Robert Suarez.
After being one of the best closers in baseball, arguably the best, through the first week of August, Suarez has been shaky in the last month-plus. Starting with an outing on Aug. 8 in which he gave up a run on two hits, Suarez has appeared in 15 games. He's allowed at least one run in seven of them. In those 15 outings, he has a 6.13 ERA and 1.50 WHIP. He's only struck out 11 in 14 2/3 innings.
Before that stretch, Suarez had a 1.42 ERA, 0.90 WHIP and 43 strikeouts in 44 1/3 innings.
Padres manager Mike Shildt doesn't appear to be worried, or at least he wasn't publicly saying so after Suarez gave up a game-tying home run to the Giants' Heliot Ramos in the ninth inning Sunday.
"Human," Shildt said of what he has seen from Suarez lately (via the San Diego Union Tribune). "He was basically (better than) human the first however many parts of the season. The ball is coming out good. … Give credit to (Ramos), put a good swing and put a good at-bat together. They're just catching up to balls to take some opposite-field shots. That's a hard thing to do, and they've been able to do it. But you know, he's throwing 99, 100, 101. Stuff is really good.
"It's part of the game. Over the course of the season, you're going to give up a few balls to get barreled, and it's going to be showing up when you pitch the ninth inning. … But I will take him tomorrow in a one-run game. I can tell you that."
To this point, Suarez's backslide hasn't actually cost the Padres very dearly. They've lost two of the games in those last 15 appearances. Then again, one could argue that if he was throwing like the first half, they'd have won all 15 and that would have them within 1 1/2 games of the Dodgers for the NL West lead, instead of the 3 1/2 games by which they currently trail.
Regardless, the shutdown-bullpen portion of the roster doesn't really work if the guy at the back of it doesn't have his expected level of dominance, which has been the case for the better part of five weeks. The dream run to a World Series title most likely wouldn't include a shaky closer blowing leads.
There are other options, too, especially the three relievers they got via trade in late July.
- Tanner Scott was an All-Star closer with the Marlins and saved 18 of his 20 chances before the trade. Since the trade, he's pitching to a 2.21 ERA and 1.23 WHIP with 24 strikeouts against seven walks.
- Jason Adam has closed before but not really on a full-time basis for long stretches. He had eight saves in 2022 and 12 last season. He has four this year, but none with the Padres. In his 21 appearances for the Padres, he has a 0.43 ERA, 0.57 WHIP and 27 strikeouts against three walks in 21 innings. They have a stable of studs out there, but if you're looking for the Padres' best reliever since the start of August, it is Adam, easily. Should that make him the closer? I wouldn't argue.
- Bryan Hoeing likely wouldn't been considered a closing option, but he merits mention here because he's been so good since the acquisition. Plus, teams need at least three stellar, late-inning options these days. Hoeing came over with Scott and might've been viewed as a throw-in. He's been a beast and looks particularly like a weapon who could bridge the middle innings in the playoffs. In 14 appearances, he's worked 20 innings with a 0.90 ERA, 0.75 WHIP and 16 strikeouts against three unintentional walks.
Judging from Shildt's quote after Sunday's game, he's just going to leave Suarez in the closer role. That might work itself out. There are only two weeks left in the season and the Padres not only need to solidify their wild-card spot, but they should be pushing to win the division.
It likely wouldn't hurt, however, to give Suarez some pressure-free outings to work out his issues while Hoeing takes care of the sixth or seventh inning before Scott and Adam finish things off in the eighth and ninth, respectively, at least for the next several days.
An experienced manager like Shildt also needs to deal with what such a move could do, mentally, to Suarez and that's a legitimate concern. It's possible Shildt believes moving Suarez out of his role now would do more harm than good and that he's confident Suarez will work himself out of his funk. We'll see.
As noted, the Padres have every aspect of a World Series champion right now. They just need to make sure everyone in that bullpen is slotted properly heading toward October. Relievers are the most volatile of baseball players and they work perpetually in small samples where flukes can derail things, so it's a difficult situation.
Whatever the case may be, the Padres' bullpen is a major storyline to watch here in the final two weeks of the regular season. It could end up anywhere from a major strength to the thing that ruins the season.